7 Influential Photographers.

Photographer Research.

Cecil Beaton was a very famous portrait photographer in the 1930's and 1940's and regularly worked in the British Vogue. His images were predominantly of women and icons of the time and captured an era of decadence and glamour with a powerful undertone as the independence of women grew. His work heavily influenced the work of many other fashion photographers in the industry when taking portrait images and beauty shots.     

Audrey Hepburn By Cecil Beaton.

Chicamort: Julie Andrews by Cecil Beaton.

Anya Linden, Vogue 1954 by Cecil Beaton.

Erwin Blumenfeld was a famous fashion and portrait photographer from Germany during the 1950's and 60's. His innovative and experimental style gave the fashion industry a fresh new perspective of beauty and styling and showed the unconventional creativity of photography editing by hand. There was no technical photo editing tools in the period and so Erwin would have had to over expose and paint over and shade all his images by hand until they were just right and how he wanted them. His photography shows a risk and danger that i admire and causes the viewer of the images to continue to look at the illusions of photo editing while still being thought of as high fashion photography.

Lisa Fonssagrives on the Eiffel Tower, 1939, Paris, By Erwin Blumenfeld.

Vogue US 1950 Cover 'Doe Eyes' by Erwin Blumenfeld.

Richard Avedon was a very famous photographer around the 1960's and was known for his very 'up close and personal' portrait shoots, shot predominantly in black and white, where he would be able to capture the emotion and mood of the model rather than using them to picture a garment or to show the beauty of the model. It was a very raw and unique way of almost capturing the true essence of a person. He also shot many 'Real life' photography with street scenes and animals i.e. 'Dovima With Elephants'.

Audrey Hepburn portrait by Richard Avedon for the film Funny Face.

Christobal Balenciaga, Dovima in Cloche, Cafe de deux magots, Paris by Richard Avedon.

Dovima With Elephants by Richard Avedon.

David Bailey is an  English fashion photographer who has worked in photography since 1959 until the current day. Mainly shooting portraits and upper body fashion shots and working heavily with Vogue, Bailey has worked with many famous people from Twiggy to Mick Jagger. His edgy style with high contrast gives the images an interesting depth and makes the viewers eye travel across the entire photograph and really take in the substance of the picture.

Mick Jagger, Fur Hood, David Bailey 1964.

Leslie Caron, Shot for Vogue, 1965, David Bailey.

Jean Shrimpton by David Bailey.

Helmut Newton was a Fashion and theatre photographer from the 1940's to the 1980's. His work was printed in Vogues across the world. Newton's signature style was black and white highly contrasted and exposed photographs that were provocative and almost erotic. His photography was a very blunt and out there approach to showing nude bodies. There is no fear in his photography it is very much a statement that causes controversy. 

Calvin Klein Fashions, Photographed by Helmut Newton for US Vogue 1975.

Madonna for Vanity Fair 1990 by Helmut Newton.

Guy Bourdin was a French born fashion photographer from 1953 until 1987 and is considered as one of the best fashion advertising photographers from the second half of the 20th century. Working for campaigns for the Haute Couture houses of Chanel, Gianni Versace and Issey Miyake. Bourdin's style of photography, like Newton, was very provocative and erotic. However his photographs contained more of a narrative and had surreal and sometimes shocking and graphic components that drew the viewers in. His work has often been criticised as objectifying women with the violence and sexual nature and content in his images.

Guy Bourdin, Pentax Calendar, 1980

Guy Bourdin, Vogue Italia, 1973

Guy Bourdin, French Vogue, 1972

Herb Ritts was an art and commercial photographer during the 1970's until the 1990's. His predominant style of photography was nude or semi nude portraiture while also contributing to many editorial shots in Vogue and occasionally directing commercials and music videos. His photographs were not overcrowded with objects and usually just featured the model themselves in high contrast images that showed the structure and simplicity of the human form.  

Prince, Herb Ritts.

Naomi, Herb Ritts, 1989

Nelson Mandela, Herb Ritts, 1994.

John Rankin is an English born fashion photographer. At the beginning of his career he launched his own magazines and helped to publish notable magazines such as Another magazine and Hunger magazine. His work is bright and bold and often beauty shot  and portrait orientated. Most of his work is of women that have a powerful stance and often look surreal and avant guarde.

 Andrew Gallimore for Rankin.

Skin campaign by Rankin for The British Skin Foundation.

Boxy Fit by Rankin for Issue No.3 of Hunger Magazine. 

All of these photographers have influenced the industry differently and there creative techniques are very inspiring to me as it show the varied use of camera angles, backgrounds, models and there individual features. A good thing to think about from this is whether to use black and white or colour. As i think that the Black and white images show more emotion as you don't get lost in colour and are also more dramatic. However colour images can really get across the style and effort that went into the makeup and hair and adds more dimension and texture to the image.